Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (3 page)

I pulled my gloves and scarf off, shoved the gloves inside the jacket over the spot where blood oozed in a fat stream, then tied the scarf around her shoulder to put pressure on the wound.

"Clo, you gotta wake up," I urged.

Worry that the shooter had left the tree line and was moving in on us forced my voice into a whisper.

"I need you to wake up and put pressure on this."

I gave her face a light patting, but got no response. Easing her onto the ground, I rifled through her pockets for her cellphone knowing mine was on the charger in the kitchen.

"Gran's got a kit," I said, talking to myself because she was too far gone to hear. "It's got a clotting agent in it...I think."

I dashed across the aisle between the stalls, a bullet hitting the dirt two feet from me. I threw myself into a stall already occupied by a frightened nanny goat who kicked at me as she screamed. Climbing over the half walls that formed the stalls, I tripped on more goats and fumbled with Clover's phone as I tried to call up Braeden's number in her contacts.

911 was out of the question. Night Falls was a good hour away from any emergency services, even a veterinarian. And if the cops or an ambulance team knew there was a shooter, they'd insist on making sure the threat was neutralized before they'd attend to Clover.

But Braeden would know what to do, whom to call.

No motorcycle club like the Woodsmen operated without having someone who could stop the bleeding from a bullet wound and sew it up -- especially after all the rumors I had heard from gran about shootings up on the mountain where Taron Murphy lived.

Diving into the stall with all the work supplies, I yanked open cabinet drawers as I mashed my thumb against the call icon for Braeden's number.

"Yes!" I shouted as I saw the first aid kit. I tucked it in my jacket then spun a quick circle hoping that gran had absently left the missing rifle in her work stall.

Seeing nothing, I held the phone to my ear with one hand as I climbed the ladder up to the loft. I skittered across, dodging missing boards as I made my way back to the section of the barn where I had left Clover.

"I don't want to hear it, baby girl."

Braeden's weary, indulgent tone, made me trip as he answered the call. I growled at my stupidity and picked myself up. He thought I was Clover. And it sure as fuck didn't matter how sexy he sounded. His sister, my best friend, was going to bleed to death if I didn't get help.

"It's Paisley," I yelled and dropped to the first floor, one stall away from Clover. I landed badly, my ankle screaming in protest.

"You have to get to my place now! Clo's been shot, she's hurt really bad--"

A piercing scream sheared its way up my throat and past my lips as I lunged over the final wall separating me from my best friend.

Laying among Clover's abandoned clothing was a full grown wolf with red and black mottled fur.

Another mindless scream ripped from me, Braeden's stern voice barely registering in my ear as he ordered me to calm down while yelling for others to grab their guns and mount their motorcycles.

"I need you to tell me right now what is going on," he snapped in my ear.

I scrambled backward over the wall, gaze wildly casting about for Clover. Why were her bloody clothes on the floor? Where was she?

"Damn it, Paisley, what do you see?" Braeden shouted, his motorcycle firing up.

"A wolf," I answered, voice numb with confusion.

The only light in the barn was from the one open door and what filtered through the cracks between the boards. I squinted at the beast. Fresh blood glistened on the wolf's front left shank.

"It's bleeding..."

Another wave of hysteria washed over me. "Why is the wolf bleeding? Oh God, where is Clover?"

"Shut up, Paisley," Braeden ordered. "Stop talking and listen to me. Do not hurt the wolf, do you understand?"

I stumbled into the aisle, lost in a haze of adrenaline fueled by terror. Clover had to be in the barn, somewhere. She had probably regained consciousness and crawled away from the wolf.

But how had she removed her clothes? Why wasn't there a blood trail?

"Where is Clover?" I asked, dirt exploding an inch from my shuffling feet as the rifleman took another shot.

"Don't hurt the wolf, damn it!" Bike already rolling, Braeden shouted at me over the wind and the sound of the motor rumbling between his legs. "Tell me you understand that, Paisley."

"Y-y-yes."

"I'll be right there," he promised. "The wolf won't attack you. You need to do what first aid you can. Please, baby girl, do what you can to save the wolf."

"Okay," I mumbled, my body still rooted in the center of the aisle as the gunman squeezed off one last shot.

********************

Braeden

I pulled up to Holly Ulster's barn and cut the engine on my bike at the same time Rooster and his brother Clark did the same. Just below the terrified screaming of goats and a hard blowing wind, I heard a woman's soft sobbing.

Paisley -- I knew all of her sounds as well as I knew Clover's. Laughter, crying, even her damn hiccups.

"Clo?" I shouted, jumping off the bike and tossing my helmet to the ground.

"Are you forgetting about the shooter?" Rooster hissed as I raced into the dark barn.

I didn't care about my safety -- or only cared about it to the extent that Clover would need me to heal her.

"Braeden?" Soft confusion laced Paisley's voice.

I looked to my left, finding her in the first stall. Her face was pressed against the neck of a wolf -- my little wolf, all grown now but still mine to protect.

Dropping to my knees, I roughly pushed Paisley's hands out of the way, my mind barely registering her blood shot eyes, tear swollen face or the thick smear of blood that covered the left side of her face.

"Why did you tell me to look after the wolf?"

She sounded like cotton gauze floating in a breeze and I didn't know if it was her voice that was distant or my hearing as I gathered Clover into my arms.

"Why didn't you want me to look for Clo?" she asked, tone shifting from dazed to angry.

I didn't have time for her questions or the hysteria that might erupt when I answered.

Paisley hit a feeble fist against my shoulder. "I said your sister was shot and is missing you stupid bastard!"

When I continued to ignore her and placed a hand over my sister's wound, Paisley swatted ineffectually at Clover's snout.

"Restrain her," I snarled at Rooster.

Paisley was in shock, didn't understand what she had just done because we had been hiding the biggest secret imaginable from her for a decade. But if she had hit my dying sister again, I might have broken her arm.

I pulled Clover tight against me, repeating the promises I'd made the entire ride from Rooster and Clark's home. Never again would I tell my little sister that she talked too much. I wouldn't call her a busybody, either. I'd let her have the shower first every damn morning for the rest of what I prayed would be a very long life.

Just please, please let her live.

Over and over I repeated those promises as I let every ounce of my alpha healing energy pour into her. I rocked, I whispered, I kissed the fur matted with her blood, its coppery essence seeping past my lips to sour my tongue.

"Fuck it's cold." Clover's weak whisper ripped a harsh laugh from my chest. "Shit, am I naked?"

Freeing another laugh, I barked an order for Clark to find something to cover her with, the bloodied clothes useless in keeping her warm.

"There's a stall back right of the barn," Rooster said, his arms still around Paisley.

Paisley...

I had momentarily forgotten about her.

"Smells like goat," Clover complained as Clark returned with a handful of blankets.

"What is it," Clark started, turning his back while I drew the blankets up around my baby sister, "about women that lets them be dying one second and complaining the next?"

"What makes you think we need separate seconds, jerk wad?"

Clover grinned up at me then her smile collapsed and she jerked her head around.

"Paisley? Where is she? Is she..."

Seeing her best friend confined in the rough circle of Rooster's arms, she reached a hand toward her.

Paisley stared at the offering then looked at me.

No doubt about it, the girl was in shock.

"You shifted, Clo," I said, explaining why her best friend was looking at her extended hand like it was dripping acid -- or dipped in goat shit. "What do you remember?"

She answered with a weak shake of her head.

I nodded at Clark and Rooster to help Clo while I turned my attention to Paisley. She shrank from me, her gaze jumping from me, to the two brothers then to Clo before repeating the circuit. I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a light shake.

"What happened to the shooters? How many were there?"

She stared at my face, dumb and mute, her skin pale as the snow that still clung to the cabin's roof. I didn't know which was worse, her current silence or the fresh bout of hysteria I expected once it finally sank in that she had witnessed Clover shift from her wolf to human form.

At the sound of approaching motorcycles, I tapped Rooster's arm.

"Tell them to keep their heads down, but I need them to fan out and find where the shots were coming from."

He nodded, his body practically dancing with the need to join the hunt.

"We don't know how many there were, tell them that. Then check the cabin, I need to know it's safe before I take Clo inside."

Gaining my feet, I extended a hand down to Paisley. I needed to get her inside before her shock wore off and she turned unmanageable.

"Can you stand?"

Staring at my hand, she tucked hers inside her bloodstained jacket.

Fine! I spun and knelt in front of Clover, gently scooping her up then standing as Rooster jogged back into the barn.

"House is clear!"

I jerked my head at Paisley. "Bring her."

I expected shrieks to erupt but Paisley apparently hadn't made the connection from Clover to me to the Woodsmen and the secret the pack had been hiding for almost a century from every human in Night Falls.

"Not there," Paisley rasped from the living room as I started to place Clover in the middle of Holly's bed. I growled, ready to ignore her, but Clover tugged at the collar of my jacket.

"She's right...this is where they found the body."

My stomach did a superstitious back flip and I reversed directions, carrying Clover into Paisley's bedroom.

"She's bleeding," Clover said as I peeled the goat blankets away from her shoulder and called for Rooster to bring me some water and look for rubbing alcohol.

"That's your blood, baby girl. Paisley's fine."

"You sure?"

I wasn't. Not one hundred percent, at least. Clearly, Paisley was in shock, but I'd seen her with her face pressed against Clover's neck when I entered the barn.

My grip went slack as I swabbed at Clover's shoulder. The blood had been on the opposite cheek.

"Ow! Dude! You better stick to the alpha healing and let someone else do the clean up!"

I looked at Clover, pained tears making her eyes shimmer.

"Let me check on Paisley," I said. "It'll give you a few minutes to rest before I have to draw that bullet out of you."

********************

Paisley

Sitting on my grandmother's couch, I stared at the floor, eyes purposefully crossed, as I listened to Rooster and Clark whispering in the kitchen.

Pack...exposed...humans...

The words slid against one another, not always making sense.

None of it made sense, actually. I had witnessed a wolf transform into my best friend. I'd seen her heal in Braeden's arms when she had been near death before his arrival. And not a damn one of the Woodsmen present at the time seemed shocked at what had happen. So they were in on the secret -- or carried the same secret as Clover did.

Every last one of them had that power of transformation in them, and now I knew.

Not good...too risky...

The words belonged to Clark and Rooster but they echoed the sentiments racing around inside my head. What happened to normal people who knew the Woodsmen's secret? Was that what had happened up on Taron's mountain? Had the rumored shootout been between the Woodsmen and humans who had discovered their secret?

Fuck, I had to get away from them. Only where could I go? It wasn't like the government had some supernatural witness protection program -- at least I had never heard of such a thing.

First rule of Supernatural Witness Protection -- don't fucking talk about Supernatural Witness Protection!

I choked on an hysterical laugh that wanted to escape.